For Pity's Sake
by Gabriel O'Merrick
Summary: Jareth takes pity on an abused boy of unusual talent and brings him to the underground. Now FINISHED!
1. Chapter 1

**For Pity's Sake**

**Disclaimer: As much as I would like it, Jareth the Goblin King and his realm—and the other realms of the underground for that matter—belong to Jim Henson, not me.**

The scene unwound as it had many times before—like watching _Romeo and Juliet_ over and over again, you always knew how it would end but you always want Romeo and Juliet to live happily ever after—and this night wasn't the exception. Poor Jamie would always mess up something during the day, and when his father found out, the poor boy could only hope that he got sent to his room without supper. Usually, especially if his father had been drinking, it would result in beatings. The child would cry his aching self to sleep with no hope of life getting any better. That was his plight.

Through one of his magic crystals, Jareth watched the boy. True, he watched many children around the world, but Jamie often drew his interest. He could see great potential for the boy; he was a creative child that saw value in things that few other people would consider. It pained the Goblin King to watch the boy plodding through life, just trying to get by, when he could be so useful. Creativity was rather lacking in the Labyrinth. An eyeless fish could see that!

"But my hands are tied." Jareth reminded himself, "Unless someone wishes him away, I have no say in the matter." Jareth shifted the focus of his crystal to another house just in time to catch the oldest child wishing his younger sister Megan away.

"Maybe we'll be getting some new perspective around here after all."

~.~

A couple days passed, and Jareth was wishing he had sent little Megan back to her family. All the little brat did was whine, even when she got her way.

"No wonder he wished her away," he groaned, "This child is unbearable! Maybe I should send her to the Queen of Cups…" he chuckled at the idea before summoning a couple of goblins to fulfill his fiendish plan. Maybe now he could spend time on more worthwhile things, like finding a new use for all the letters the mayors sent him; he'd already filled an oubliette or two with them but he still couldn't find his desk, or his chair either for that matter.


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry it took so long. I had major writer's block and finals, but I'm back with another chapter…**

Jamie clutched his notebook to his chest as he trudged home through the rain. It contained his drawings. They were little more than idle doodles, really, but they were an excellent outlet for his mind. He looked over at the park; how he wished to run and play, despite the rain, but he had to get home right away and do his homework. He also wasn't looking where he was going.

Wham! He ran smack into someone. The man reached down and helped Jamie to his feet. He was a rather tall man, at least from Jamie's perspective, with tousled-looking hair and a strange suit. He reached down and pulled the boy back to his feet.

"I'm sorry, sir. I didn't see you." Jamie explained. The man picked up Jamie's notebook, which had fallen open in a puddle of water, and brushed it off.

"No harm done," The man smiled. "You seem to be quite the artist." He added as he glanced down at the boy's notebook. Jamie blushed.

"Thank you, but I'm not that good." Jamie politely reclaimed his book and tucked it into his bag.

"I beg to differ; that dragon you drew looks quite ferocious." The man held his umbrella at an angle so it sheltered the boy as well as himself as they walked.

"But his claws turned out all wrong," Jamie protested, "He was supposed to be clutching a scepter."

"You really do have a gift, you know," the blond man continued as is he hadn't heard, "There are many places that would love to have someone with your sort of genius."

"But I'm just a kid. No one would take me seriously!" The man just chuckled and shook his head.

"Well, if you change your mind, I'll be around." He left the boy standing on the step of the apartment building and began to walk away.

"Sir! I didn't catch your name."

"Jareth." Jamie turned around to unlock his front door and glanced back over his shoulder. The mysterious man—Jareth, he corrected himself—was nowhere to be found.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's apology: Sorry it took so long to add another chapter. I had a computer crash, a flash drive that went missing, and my muses wander off. Hopefully it won't take as long to write more, but I make no promises. **

Jamie greeted his mom briefly as he ran up to his room to get started on his homework. As he pulled out his notebook, remembering it fell in a puddle, he decided to check and see how much damage the rain water had done to his precious drawings. Fearing the worst, he opened the notebook only to find nothing had happened to it.

_Weird… I thought for sure it got wet…_ The boy thumbed through a couple more pages, shocked to find them completely dry and unharmed, before he began his homework. The rain continued to patter against the window pane and drew his mind away from his work. He always hated the rain because it made the sky gray and trapped him inside the house for hours. He wished it was sunny outside, not that it would be sunny long. He heard the hall clock chime five and sighed. His father would be home soon.

Jamie forced himself to return to his homework, but before long, his mind had wandered to one of his fantasy books. One of the illustrations caught his eye; it was a drawing of the Goblin King from a story simply entitled "Labyrinth". He chuckled when he realized it looked like the man from the park. He read the caption under the picture, then the first couple paragraphs of the story, and suddenly found himself engrossed in the tale of a girl who wished her brother away to a magical labyrinth ruled by the powerful Goblin King. So lost was he in his fantasy that the slamming of the door downstairs and the yelling that followed startled him out of his chair. The book landed splayed on the floor. Jamie quickly scooped it up only to realize that he'd lost his place. As he thumbed back through the book in a desperate search for the page he was on, he glanced across an earlier paragraph.

"'I wish the goblins would come and take you away… right now'." The phrase seemed to fix itself in his mind. The arguing downstairs grew louder, and the weather seemed to have become more turbulent in response.

_I wish the goblins would come take __**me**__ away._ He thought. Heavy footsteps were coming up the stairs now, the argument following. Jareth almost dared not watch through his magic crystal. He knew how this always ended. But this time was different.

"I wish the goblins would come and take me away right now." The boy muttered as the door flew open, and three things occurred at once. A flash of lightning split the sky, the power went out to the apartment building, and Jamie found himself falling—not to the floor, but through it and into The Underground. The falling didn't frighten him; what scared him was the two-fold realization that he was no longer home but was instead plummeting towards the ground with no obvious ways of slowing himself. He could see rushing up at him the winding stone corridors, swamps, and gardens of The Labyrinth and realized to his dismay that he was going to crash in the city.

Great motley patches of gaudy colors suddenly began to spread over the buildings. Jamie crashed into one of them, a fuchsia and green one, and bounced off the giant parachute and back into the air. He sailed over to a blue one, ricocheted off it to a red and then to a yellow and orange one before landing in a thick, fluffy mat in the castle courtyard. Laughing, he brushed himself off. He looked up to see Jareth—in his high-collared cloak and insanely tight pants—standing by the castle doors with a retinue of goblins.

"Welcome, Jamie. So nice of you to join us."

**I hope this doesn't seem like shameless self-promotion, but PLEASE COMMENT! I welcome comments and constructive criticism and write much faster if I think people are actually reading this and waiting for its continuance.**

**Thanx!**


	4. Chapter 4

"Where am I?" The boy asked, slightly puzzled.

"In my kingdom the Labyrinth," The Goblin King replied, "You asked for me to take you away, did you not?"

"I didn't think it would actually work." Jamie confessed. Jareth shrugged.

"It matters not." He motioned to one of the goblin's nearby.

"Take Jamie up to his room so he can get cleaned up for supper," he ordered, "and make sure Skub knows we have company tonight." The goblin led the way into the castle and through a series of mind bending halls up before opening the door to a large bedroom. It housed a four-poster bed with a canopy, a drawing desk with more paper and colored pencils than Jamie knew what to do with, and a bookshelf that was full of various books. A door on the far wall led to a private bathroom. The goblin attendant opened the closet, and Jamie marveled at the array of clothes provided for him. He asked the goblin to wait outside the room for him while he changed clothes; he didn't want to get lost in the castle and miss dinner.

When Jamie entered the dining room, he looked like what a prince of the Labyrinth should look like: sleek gray pants, shiny black boots, a comfy loose-fitting dress shirt, and green jacket similar to the Goblin King's. His dark hair was still a little damp from his bath, but he felt altogether like a new person. The table was only set for two. Skub, the kitchen goblin, had made sure the plates were clean—an unheard of feat for a Goblin—and was bringing out a pair of covered plates.

"Skub make special meal for guest," the kitchen goblin bragged, "Cheese burger and fry slices!" He proudly lifted the lid from the plate. The cheeseburger looked fine—it even smelled like a cheeseburger—but Jamie couldn't help wondering what had been sliced and fried; it certainly didn't look like French fries!

"Um, thank you…" the boy managed. Skub beamed and hurried over to present Jareth with his meal. It looked just as questionable; Jamie wasn't even sure what it was supposed to be. The Goblin King waited until the goblin left before speaking.

"The food is better than it looks," he reassured, cutting a bite of the slab of roast beast on his plate. Jamie took a tentative bite of his burger, and when it tasted fine, proceeded to eat.

"So how do you like your room?"

"It's really neat, sir. Thank you for all the books and paper."

"There is one sheet of parchment in there with your paper; it, when combined with the ink in the purple bottle on the bookshelf, will bring your drawing to life."

"Really?"

"Really. Just brush the ink over the drawing, and it will come off the parchment and come to life." The goblin king watched the boy's eyes widen in delight. "Once it escapes the page, though, it's free; you can't make it go back on the page."

After dinner, Jamie decided to test the magic ink and paper. He drew a simple flower in a vase on the parchment and colored it before painting over it with the magic ink. To amazement, the flower and vase peeled up from the page until where the drawing had been lay a vase with a single flower in it. Grinning broadly, he set the vase upright and took it to the bathroom sink to get water.

Jamie spent the next day dividing his time between following Jareth around the Labyrinth and drawing in his room. Throughout the Labyrinth, there were goblins to be tipped into the Bog of Eternal Stench, walls to rearrange, and runners to confuse. He even got to join the fieries' party for a while, though taking his head off was out of the question. When he grew tired of adventuring, he returned to his room and drew things that he thought the Labyrinth needed: big, fierce fluff-cats to keep the scab-rats out of the pantry, tiny dragons to fly about the castle (dragon-flies), and a tree that bears meatballs just to name a few. But after a few days, it was apparent to all in the Labyrinth that Jamie was homesick.

"Jareth, sir, I want to go home."

"I thought you liked it here. You could be prince of the Labyrinth."

"It's nice here, but I miss my mom." He looked up at Jareth with teary brown eyes, "I wish you would take me home."

"Right now?"

"Right now." Jareth nodded and clapped his hands. Jamie felt that strange falling sensation as everything around him went dark.

Thunder boomed overhead as Jamie picked himself up off the floor. The lights flickered back on in his apartment, and there was no sound from the stairs. He looked at the clock on the wall. It was six o'clock; only an hour had passed since he had departed for the Labyrinth. He carefully opened the door and peeked out. His father was gone, and his mother was sitting in the living room crying. He went downstairs to her.

Jareth watched the boy through his magic crystal. He sighed; nothing was any better for the change.

"For pity's sake, Milord," Sir Didymus declared, "Why ever did you send him back to that dreadful place?"

"I think it was for pity's sake…"


End file.
